Kaiser Health News has a great article on the medicare penalty for hospitals that high readmission rates. Over 2000 hospitals in the nation (that is nearly 50% of all hospitals) will be penalized for $280MM in 2013. The penalty list includes some of the most well known hospitals in the nation. You can see the full list here.

Apparently, they are not doing enough to engage patients they discharge. There are several proven ways for hospitals to reduce readmission rates, but almost all of those approaches are human intensive (e.g., requiring nurses to call patients on a daily basis), and hence very expensive to implement. I believe that this area is ripe for technology disruption. After all, technology has replaced many human intensive call centers in other industries!

We all know that physicians love the iPad. It provides an an easy way to interact with computer systems and with patients. But does iPad really improve productivity? Well, the latest research at Duke Cancer center said yes. The iPads at Duke is primarily used for patients in the waiting room to answer questionnaires about their health / treatment while they are waiting. It provides more accurate and comprehensive information for the physician to review when they spend time with the patient.

It is hard to believe that there is an academic journal is that completely dedicated to Health Games research. It really shows the high level of interest people have in this area. The underlying idea is that, if people can spend hours and hours performing mundane chores in games like Famville, why not have them perform other mundane chores that are actually good for their health. The trick is turn those mundane chores into some kind of addictive game, and that is one of the key focuses of "health games".

So far, no one has figured out a winning formula to build addictive "health games". But many experiments are underway to test different models of game mechanics and health promotion theories. That is basis for a vibrant academic research field. For more, please check out the editor-in-chief Bill Ferguson's summary article: Games for Wellness—Impacting the Lives of Employees and the Profits of Employers.